The Invisible Identity: A Discussion of Asexuality

Asexuality is a sexual orientation where individuals do not experience sexual attraction. It is different from celibacy, which is a choice to refrain from engaging in sexual behaviors. Heteronormativity promotes heterosexuality as the default, creating a world where those who are not straight feel unwelcome. Hypersexualization refers to society being sexualized to an unnecessary degree. Asexuality can be experienced in different ways, and there are various identities on the asexual spectrum. These include sex favorability, sex indifference, and sex repulsion. It is important to understand and respect the diversity within the asexual community. Content warning. This podcast will talk about sex. Not any graphic details, of course. I'm asexual myself. But there will be discussion of sex, arousal, and related topics for the purposes of education. Too straight to be gay. And too gay to be straight. In a world where hypersexualization permeates almost all aspects of our culture, it's all too easy for those who identify as asexual to feel like they don't belong in a heteronormative world. So they turn to the LGBTQ plus community for refuge, only to be shunned by some within who claim they don't belong. Despite there being an A in the more extended acronym, LGBTQIA+, some still consider asexuality to be an outgroup, giving rise to beliefs such as the A is for ally. But what is hypersexualization? Or heteronormativity? What is asexuality? In order to discuss asexuality and its misconceptions, we must first define these terms. Starting off with asexuality, the University of North Carolina describes it best as a term used to describe someone who does not experience sexual attraction towards individuals of any gender. Asexuality is a sexual orientation and is different from celibacy, in that celibacy is the choice to refrain from engaging in sexual behaviors and does not comment on one's sexual attractions. But what exactly does that mean? Have you ever been immediately captivated by a stranger who walked into a room? Something about them captured their attention. Maybe their clothes, their hair, or the way they carry themselves. Maybe all three. You really can't tell. You don't know, but what you see and feel are burning something. Something you want to understand. A warm breeze washes over you. Warmth. That's arousal. Or so I've been told. See, the thing about asexuality is that asexual, or ace, people don't really feel those feelings. They don't experience sexual attraction, that draw to other people. However, while I don't personally experience it, some aces can experience arousal or have a libido. On the other hand, something I do experience is that ace people can still have romantic attraction. But we'll get to that in a minute. As for heteronormativity, that is defined as a worldview where heterosexuality, aka being straight, is promoted or ingrained in society as the default. However, there is another component to this, one that relates much more to being asexual. With heteronormativity comes a certain expectation that everyone will eventually have sex. For example, women are often asked by parents and peers alike about when they'll have their own children. This question, while relatively harmless, assumes a lot. First, it assumes the person in question is both capable and willing to have children, since people usually mean biological children. But it also assumes they are or will be with a man, and that they will want to have sex. These are all easy things to assume, but treating heterosexuality as the default can create a world where those who are not straight feel unwelcome. Finally, that expectation leads us to defining hypersexualization. Hypersexualization is an extreme or inappropriate labeling of characteristics or individuals as sexual. In the context of our world, it refers to the state of our society being sexualized to an unnecessary degree. For example, we can look no further than ads for various mobile games. These days, it seems like all these ads, regardless of the game's actual content, contain mostly naked women and poorly disguised erotic material. The reason behind this? Sex sells. So, what does all this have to do with asexuality? Well, now that we have a surface-level understanding, we can take a deep dive into the implications the things we just talked about have. This begins our discussion of asexuality, the invisible identity. I went, you know, two-thirds of my life without having any clue whatsoever that I was ace. Didn't really, until I was in my late 20s, my only real exposure to the, even the idea of it at all, was, you know, the occasional traumatized person in a book or something like that. It was always emotional trauma from something that happened. I'd never, you know, encountered it as just something about a person. So, I never really thought about it. I just assumed I was like the default, like everyone else. Although, I'm now learning that a lot of everyone else is also not like everyone else. I was very heavily socialized in white Christian patriarchy. It, for me, was always something that, like, I was supposed to do because I was supposedly a woman. And a woman isn't supposed to enjoy sex, so it didn't really occur to me that I was on the asexual spectrum for a really long time because your whole purpose as a woman in evangelical Christianity is to, you know, lie back and let your husband or the man in your relationship do what he wants to do. Make as many babies as possible and your enjoyment doesn't matter. So, the fact that I wasn't experiencing any kind of gratification or attraction to, you know, the men in my life that were performing these acts, it just seemed normal. This is Barry and Rowan, members of the Queer Ministry for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron. Their job is to provide support for the LGBTQ plus community, in addition to educating others on what it means to be a part of that community. And today, they're here with me to discuss their paths to discovering asexuality. Really good friend of mine started kind of getting into the explorations of types of sexuality, like, actually getting into research and just talking with them and just kind of having it slowly dawn that my experience isn't just individual, it's a completely different category from the majority of people. Yeah, for me, figuring out asexuality, it really came with deconstructing Christianity for me. And leaving evangelical Christianity behind in part of, you know, my deconstruction and, you know, getting into leftist politics, you know, coming into contact with people who were very into, you know, consent and sexual liberation and mutual sexual gratification. Which was something I had never experienced before. And coming to realize that the fact that I'm not experiencing large amounts of sexual attraction isn't statistically average, we'll say. I kind of went down a rabbit hole of being hypersexual and trying to find people and forms of intimacy that were gratifying. And I kind of kept hitting up against this wall of like, yeah, this is nice. This is good. But, meh. For me, it's a bit of the opposite in that I don't have any trouble picking up on, like, innuendo or sex jokes or anything like that. But it's all abstract, intellectual, that doesn't really have any more personal impact or meaning than like, the technical details of how spaceships work in Star Trek. Like, I can learn it, I can recognize it, but it's just facts, figures, you know, a language puzzle. There's no heat to it. And their experiences are just a few of the many places people can fall on the ace spectrum. There are so many ways a person can experience asexuality, and no two experiences are exactly alike. This is further supported by a video from Spacey Aces on YouTube, which includes definitions of grey asexuality, demisexuality, and ace flux. These are all different experiences and yet united by one thing, a lack of sexual attraction. Although there are many terms for various identities on the spectrum, asexuality as a whole tends to branch into three attitudes. Sex favorability, sex indifference, and sex repulsion. However, I am not the first person to try and define these terms. A video essay by David J. Bradley entitled Asexuals and Sex perfectly sums up each of these terms. And so, as to neither plagiarize his words nor butcher his definitions, I'll just let you listen to what he has to say. Let's start with sex favorable. Very basically, this is people who are okay with sex. They are comfortable with engaging in sexual acts and are likely to seek out a sexual relationship. They may enjoy the physical experience of it, they may do it for the sake of an allosexual partner, they may do it because it's entirely their own business and we don't need to speculate on why. But if we accept what I've already said, that there doesn't need to be a connection between sexual attraction and actually having sex, then sex favorable asexuality should be pretty easy to grasp. Next we have sex indifferent. This is the category for people who have no particular strong feelings about sex one way or the other. They aren't inclined towards it, but it doesn't put them off either. This is probably the one that I would describe myself as. Sex isn't a thing that I have any personal interest in doing, but I'm not upset at the idea, and I suppose if I wanted to for some reason I could, but, you know, just not for me really. Sex-repulsed people, or sex-averse people, do not like sex. This can vary from just not wanting it for themselves, but being fine with the concept in things like porn and movies, to the very thought of it at all making someone's skin crawl. For some people it's just a lack of interest, similar to that of sex-indifferent people. For others it is outright disgust and genuine physical revulsion. The asexual spectrum is incredibly diverse, contrary to what the stereotypes might say. If we treat these stereotypes as the truth, then all asexual people are just lonely souls with a passionate hate for sex. However, even when it comes to sex-repulsion, this is rarely the case. You can be asexual and hate sex, you can be allosexual and hate sex. I would guess, as someone who has not done the research, but just has experienced a bit of life, that people who hate sex do so for reasons completely unrelated to whether they feel sex is appealing. And that it is different than sex-repulsed. Like, there are some people who are asexual who are just completely squicked out of it. But, you know, you might not like mushrooms, and it's really off-putting to eat them or maybe even smell them, but that doesn't mean you hate mushrooms or think that people who eat them should be flogged or whatever. As Barry says, there is an important distinction between sex-repulsion and sex-negativity. Generally, being sex-repulsed is a personal distaste for sex, while sex-negativity is a negative attitude towards sex as a whole. An ace person can still be capable of supporting their non-ace friends or allosexuals, even if they find the idea of having sex repulsive. On the other hand, some aces can choose to have sex for a myriad of reasons. Rowan, as a gray ace person, can shed some light on what that experience is like. I'm not broken just because I don't experience a large amount of sexual attraction. You know, I am polyamorous. I do have three partners that I love very, very much. I am very much attracted to them. But long before I experienced that physical attraction, I experienced a psychological attraction, a romantic attraction. So that's kind of why I put myself more in the gray ace category, because some of that does overpower me. That's kind of why I put myself more in the gray ace category, because some of that does overlap with being demisexual, which is needing a really strong emotional connection before having a sexual connection. But a lot of it, too, is just, sex is nice, but there's 101 other things that we could be doing. Take it or leave it. I am an asexual person, and I do have sex. My partners and I are trying to have a baby, and that kind of requires sexual activity. In addition to wanting children, other reasons can include wanting to please a partner or even enjoying sex oneself. Lack of attraction doesn't inherently mean someone won't enjoy sex, just like a lack of hunger won't necessarily make food taste worse. Another aspect of all this is different types of attraction. While ace people don't feel sexual attraction, some can still experience romantic attraction. To demonstrate this, we need look no further than my own life. I am asexual and consider myself sex-repulsed, but still feel feelings of romantic love. I have a significant other, and despite not being sexually attracted to them, I care for them deeply. Asexual people like myself can still find meaningful romantic relationships without sex, because sex doesn't equate to love. And truly, neither does romance. Aromantic individuals, those who don't experience romantic attraction, can also find meaningful platonic bonds. No matter what, all of these feelings are still valid parts of the asexual spectrum. However, the road to discovering one is asexual is often paved with feelings of being invalid. Let's talk about the role, or lack thereof, of ace people in our society. Then, something has likely gone awry physiologically. There's actually no meaningful distinction between sexual attraction and romantic attraction. The two terms are synonyms. I've heard the argument tossed around before that asexual people are not oppressed. However, I can say with certainty that a claim like that isn't true. While asexuality isn't openly attacked for being unnatural or sinful, in the same way gay and trans individuals are, the erasure of asexuality is still a very damaging form of oppression. Even without people like Matt Walsh equating a lack of sexual attraction to brokenness, it's no wonder that ace people can feel broken. With as prevalent as hypersexualization is in modern culture, even the idea that one doesn't feel sexual attraction can be alien. Everywhere we go, appeals to sexual attraction and lust can be found in advertisements and media we consume. And when we are constantly bombarded by something we're told we're supposed to enjoy, it's hard not to feel like there's something wrong when we don't. In order to even discover we're ace, we have to deconstruct those feelings, reject the societal norm, and realize that it's okay to not feel those feelings. But unfortunately, it doesn't end there. Even once they come out, ace people potentially experience invalidation from family and peers. Common talking points against asexuality include, You're just a late bloomer. You haven't met the right person. But everyone wants sex. How could you not want sex? It's what makes us human. But is sex really what makes us human? After all, all life forms on this planet procreate. Humanity isn't special for having sexual desire, or even choosing to have sex for pleasure. And yet, sexual attraction is such a deep-rooted part of our culture that we place it on a pedestal. And in the process, we leave others feeling like they don't belong. Sometimes, it can even feel like the LGBTQ plus community is no better, purposefully excluding asexuals from their place of refuge. However, Barry once again provides us with another perspective. There does seem to be that sort of vibe sometimes. At least in my experience, it's usually not very active. It's a lot of passive exclusion of, Oh, right, you're ace. We didn't prepare any questions about that. Any questions or conversations and everything is about feeling sexual attraction. Well, try to play along. Or it just feels like, you know, they didn't think to create a spot. Not so much that they don't want me there, but invisibility, I guess. However, this certainly doesn't invalidate the experiences of those who have been purposefully excluded from the community. A lot of it is a matter of perspective. One person may not be rejected from a group based on being asexual, but someone from a different area may. The challenges faced by ace people are not a uniform issue, just like with the rest of the queer community. For example, I'm very lucky to not have experienced much aphobia throughout my life. The few examples I can recall are brief, albeit very personal, moments in time that left very little impact on me. But for others, aphobia and the pressure to be queer enough can hurt deep. So what's the point of discussing all this? Why exactly does it matter? Well, out of all the communities that make up the LGBTQ plus community, it seems like aces have the most misconceptions surrounding them. As an ace person, it's important for me to set the record straight and talk about what asexuality really is. It's not a disease or dysfunction, not celibacy, and not hating sex. We aren't broken, and we won't be fixed by meeting the right person, or just simply having sex. We are people who may live different lives from what is considered to be the norm, but are happy and healthy people. And I don't want asexuality to remain shrouded in obscurity within a mist of misconceptions. I refuse to remain invisible. This podcast comes with a work cited. However, I want to take some time at the end to give some huge thank yous to people who made this podcast possible. First, a huge thank you to my interviewees, Barry Haas and Rowan Buford-Gaird, for taking time out of their day to come and talk to me about this project. And thank you so much to Abby LeBair for getting me in contact with them. Next, I want to thank my friend Julian for helping me edit this podcast, and my friend Hannah for writing a part of the script, because I don't know what sexual attraction feels like. Finally, I want to give a big thank you to our teacher, Mr. Gillette, for making this project possible. Thank you. This is something that I love talking about, so to get to work on it for a school project is amazing. Thank you, everyone who made this project possible. And thank you for listening.